Evidentiality in Uzbek and Kazakh

5.1.3 Admiratives, Exclamatives, and Emotivity 
In treating admiratives as emotive sentence types, it is useful to compare them to another 
sentence type that is generally considered to express an emotive attitude: exclamatives (Andueza 
and Gutiérrez-Rexach 2010). As explained previously, exclamatives are defined as utterances 
that bear emotive meaning and have an associated 
WH
-element. It is the presence of this 
WH
-
3
2009. “Blog rïyzïq pen rïzïq blog” Urimtal’s Blog, 28 Jan. Accessed 2 Feb 2011. 
urimtal1.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/блог-ризық-пен-ризық-блог.html 
5
2009. “Sïyğa-sïy, sïrağa…muražaydan orïn!” Nurğïysa Asïlbekov, 28 Dec. Accessed 7 Mar 
2011. http://www.nurgisa.kz/?p=1084 

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feature, rather than the presence of discourse particles such as wow or man or gosh that allows 
for the classification of exclamatives as a sentence type. Discourse particles such as these are 
analogous to Kazakh ğoy and Uzbek -a or -da. 
Exclamatives, as defined by the presence of a 
WH
-element, appear to be an areal feature.
These constructions are attested in most western Eurasian languages, including Turkish. In the 
following examples from Elliott (1974, 245), the 
WH
-element is bolded. 
(193) Wie angenehem est ist! 
 
German 
 
‘How nice it is!’ 
(194) Ce om plăcut este! 
 
 
Romanian 
‘What a nice man he is!’ 
(195) Ne lezzetli yemek yapıyorsun!
Turkish 
‘What delicious meals you cook!’ 
Although these constructions are best attested in European languages, there have been claims 
that similar forms exist in other languages, such as Mandarin (196) and Japanese (197) (also 
from Elliott 1974). 
(196) Ta duoma gao!